Gallows used to hang Illinois gangster Charlie Birger found in old barn | POLL

To be displayed at Franklin County Jail Museum at Benton, Ill.

Courtesy of the Franklin County Historic Preservation Society / Associated Press
Above: This 1928 photo provided by the Franklin County Historic Preservation Society in Benton, Ill., shows bootlegging gangster Charlie Birger, center, on the gallows just before his public hanging in Benton. Birger was the last person to be publicly hanged in Illinois. Administrators of the Franklin County Jail Museum in Benton got a call recently from a family that found the gallows in a barn in Grand Tower, Ill. The wood and rebar pieces of the apparatus have been moved to the museum, which has had to make do for years with a replica of the gallows.

Submitted photograph
Charlie Birger, in the bulletproof vest, is seen sitting on top of a car in front of Shady Rest with others in the Birger gang.

Becky Malkovich / The Southern, AP
Left: In this May 7 photo, Robert Rea, president of the Franklin County Historic Preservation Society, is pictured at the Franklin County Historic Jail Museum in Benton, Ill., with the wood and rebar pieces of the gallows that were used for the 1928 public hanging of notorious bootlegging gangster Charlie Birger in Benton.

BENTON, Ill. - A piece of Southern Illinois' rich gangster history has been unearthed and will soon be on display at the Franklin County Jail Museum in Benton, Ill. The gallows from which Charlie Birger was hanged in 1928 has been located in a barn in Grand Tower, Ill.

The wood and rebar pieces of the apparatus have been moved to the museum, which previously has had to make do with a replica of the gallows.

Birger was the last person to be publicly hanged in Illinois. He was executed for the Dec. 12, 1926, murder of Joe Adams, the mayor of West City, Ill.

The Franklin County Jail Museum contains a collection of Birger-related items, including some of his machine guns, bulletproof vest and other articles chronicling the public execution.

Birger was known to have killed at least three men. Fifteen others, including a woman, were slain during a bloody gang war between the Shelton Brothers and the Birger gang in the 1920s. Police records suggest Birger also ordered the assassination of at least two others.

When it came time for Birger to be executed, he called for G. Phil Hanna, a humanitarian hangman from Epworth, Ill., a small town south of Carmi. A description of Birger's execution appeared in the April 26, 1928, edition of the White County Democrat newspaper. The account was based upon interviews of some of the 15 Carmi residents who witnessed the execution.

"Birger was led from his cell at 9:45. He walked the short distance to the scaffold unassisted, and once upon the wooden structure, he waved goodbye to the vast crowd that had gathered to see the notorious gang leader in his last minutes on earth."

"Sheriff Pritchard approached him and spoke a few words. Birger assumed an air of gaiety which the strain of his face belied. When the time came to march to the gallows, the gang leader, as if with a great effort, drew himself to a semblance of composure, waived assistance and walked to the scaffold steps alone."

"Hanna adjusted the noose about Birger's neck and the execution robe was fastened about his small lean body. The trap was sprung at 9:48 and the notorious gang leader was pronounced dead at 10:03."

Until August 2011, the Franklin County Jail Museum also housed the hangman's noose used to execute Birger. It had been given in 1959 to Mary Glover, the daughter of Franklin County Sheriff Jim Pritchard. In 1966, she loaned the noose to the Franklin County Jail Museum with the understanding that the family could have it back whenever they asked for it. When Mrs. Glover's guardian, Rebecca Cocke asked for the noose back, the museum refused. She filed a lawsuit, and the museum was eventually ordered to return the noose to the family.

Records show that Birger's first wife, Mrs. E. Aaron, traveled from Portland, Ore., to witness the execution and claim the body and assist in escorting it to St. Louis for burial. When she asked Birger if he was going to make a talk from the scaffold, he replied that he was going to give them all a good cussing before he left.

A native of Russia, Charlie Shachnai Itzak Birger is buried in the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in St. Louis.

The museum is located at 209 W. Main Street in Benton, Ill. The facility is open to visitors 9 a.m. to noon and 1-4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The museum is closed on Sunday.